A visual preview of Mac OS X Lion

Apple's latest OS cribs some of the more popular features and functionalities of the iPad and boasts built-in server software

The latest version of Apple's Mac OS cribs some of the more popular features and functionalities of the iPad. Here's a look at some of the highlights of the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.7 Lion that Apple will further detail next week at its Worldwide Developers Conference. (All images courtesy of Apple.)

With Lion's iPad-like full-screen functionality, users can make a window in an app full screen, then switch to another app’s full-screen window with a swipe of the trackpad, and swipe back to the desktop to access your other apps without ever leaving the full-screen view. Third-party developers will be able to leverage the full-screen technology as well.

Click the Launchpad icon in your Dock, and you'll get a display of all the apps on your Mac, enabling quick and easy access to whatever app you want. Apps can be rearranged or grouped into folders, and apps downloaded from the Mac App Store are automatically placed in Launchpad.

Mission Control gives a bird's-eye view of everything running on a Mac all in one place. When users zoom out to Mission Control, they see their open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of their full-screen apps, and Dashboard. They can also click on any of the apps to access them.

Resume lets you restart your Mac and return to exactly what you were doing before the restart -- all your apps will be back in the places you left them. Resume also works if you quit and relaunch an app.

Versions automatically creates a copy of a document each time users open it and every hour while it's being worked on. If users need to revert to an older edition or retrieve part of a document, a Time Machine-like interface displays the current document next to a cascade of previous iterations. From there, users can revert to an older version or copy and paste work from a previous variant into the current version.